Major(s): Math
Minor(s): N/A
GPA: >3.9
Type of Student: DWM
GRE Revised General Test:
Q: 170 (96)
V: 166 (97)
W: 5.5 (98)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
M: 760 (71)
Program Applying: Pure & Applied math
Research Experience: 5 semesters + summers working on various original research projects with faculty advisors at home university. Variety of topics mostly centered on analysis on graphs. No REUs. Lots of conferences; e.g. 3 years JMM, poster at UMS. A handful of regional conferences and a couple of seminar talks. 4 original manuscripts, 5th due soon, with 3 more expository manuscripts.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Standard honor roll awards, with some more specialized departmental awards. No huge national honors outside of some conference awards. National Merit scholarship.
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutored calculus all four years of undergrad, with recent grading assignments.
Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: I think I have 45-50 total number of enrolled math courses (this includes research credits). Among these are probably 15 or so graduate level classes (this excludes research). In particular, I specialized academically early on in analysis and made an effort to exhaust every analysis course at my school thru Ph.D.. I have four letter writers; three are professors who have known me all of undergrad and have advised original/expository research. The fourth is supervisor from department math lab, also known all of undergrad.
Applying to Where:
Longshots
Princeton - Rejected 1/31
MIT - Rejected 2/6
Yale - Rejected 2/3
CalTech - Rejected 2/19
Michigan - Rejected 2/13
UCLA - Will withdraw
Stanford - Will withdraw
Ambitious but not insane
Wisconsin - Rejected 2/5
Brown - Rejected 2/11
Georgia Tech - Will withdraw
UT Austin - Will withdraw
Minnesota - Will withdraw
UC San Diego - Accepted 2/7 (w/ funding) Accepted offer - 3/7
Ohio State - Accepted 12/31 (w/ funding) Declined 3/7
North Carolina, Chapel Hill - Accepted 2/4 (w/ funding) Declined 2/11
Safety (in theory)
University of Utah - Accepted 1/31 (w/ funding) Declined 2/8
Texas A&M - Accepted 1/24 (w/ funding + fellowship
) Declined 2/11~ R e f l e c t i o n ~
- The mGRE matters heavily. I think a lot of rejections I got were based on being <80 percentile. But what helped is that I had a bunch of research and a lot of interest (evidenced by a strong personal statement) in a field that matched very well with a good department. So I was able to make it. I think my mGRE was below average for UCSD, so if you're reading this, be aware that my score probably isn't representative of the average applicant with an offer.
- If I could go back I wouldn't have wasted so much money on longshot schools. The writing was on the wall lol.
- This community is 10% helpful and 90% toxic. Stay for the helpful people but keep your distance from the toxic people. If you're not at least a little bit insecure about your profile, you're either god tier (if you're reading this you're not) or you're overconfident. This website can be toxic because not everyone handles that insecurity in a healthy way. Believe in yourself, be realistic about your options, take a deep breath, get off gradcafe, and all of this will pass. There are a lot of god tier people (bless their mothers, I'm sure they tried to raise them right) who probably don't have much y w
- Some final words on the math GRE before I close this nightmarish chapter in my academic career.
- General advice: do a ton of calculus problems, take it twice or more if you can, and take it seriously every time. You really need to get a good score to make it in this process. The exam sucks, it's a flawed metric of success, it's too hard, blah blah blah. We don't make the rules. Seriously, take it seriously.
- Some people say you can't study for it, or that you shouldn't study for it, or whatever. They're wrong; you really need to hit the calculus books to gain not just recall but mastery over things that may be long forgotten. I approached the exam as a competitive math test, with a mindset of training > studying. Don't try to master a new subject, just try to nail calc/linear algebra/diffeq/(one other specialized topic) and you'll get a good enough score. If you want a really good score, don't ask me because I don't know how.
- Also Princeton review is a joke and a waste of money. Specialize to to problem books to practice. For a list of good books see https://mathematicsgre.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5071
I didn't really expect to get in, but I wanted to
)
)
)
)
) 
), invited to visit weekend (3/12 - 3/13) 
.